Thursday, December 20, 2007

Smuggy birthday!

I am 42 today. I have no party planned, just a long-overdue haircut, and maybe even, shhhhhhh, highlight, followed by a women's league hockey game. I doubt there will be cake, though Ian might surprise me yet and the gifts will be less material than the kind I used to enjoy as a child. But.... just in case I paint a depressing, mid-life-reeking picture I must share my morning with you so far.

After the usual morning circus of feeding, watering, grooming, wiping, diapering, snapping, zipping, wiping, zipping, didn't I already do that?, and ruthlessly rushing the girls, I got them out the door and to their respective holding pens-- Esther-Kindergarten, Isla-daycare. I came home and fed the horses. I mucked out the barn, threw ten bales of hay down out of the hayloft and kissed the horses on their velvet noses. Then, on the way in, I spied one of our sledding tubes that had blown in the wind off to the side of our yard. I went to retrieve it and, on the way to the basement, decided to take a spin. I climbed in, shoved off, picked up speed, and got an exhilarating shot of fresh snow right to the face as I coasted to a stop. "Again," I thought to myself, in the voice of Isla who has recently discovered the joys of sledding. "Again."

The fact that I was sledding alone on my 42nd birthday didn't bother me. In fact I realized that the reason I was alone was because most people-- normal, mature people-- don't really have the time, or inclination to go sledding at 8 a.m. on a Thursday morning. For once in my life, the fact that I did, have the time and inclination to do something childish on a weekday morning, made me feel ever so slightly smug. I'm getting smarter with age.

4 comments:

Momotonous
said...

Hurray! A morning zip down the meadow! You've inspired me to say f-it to work and go ski. It's New England, after all, and we have to carpe diem before all the 'diem' melts. Or washes away in a rain storm. ... You're not really 42, are you? They say the new 60 is 40, so I'm quite certain that the new 40 is 20, making you 22. In which case you should be doing shots of tequila before another spin on the tube.Happy Birthday, Betsy! I love your blogs. You inspire me to write too. But only after I ski first.

Welcome to 42! That's right, another year of paying no attention to your "age" and just acting however you feel like it awaits! Gloriously young and alive! I would certainly be sledding with you if I was there, have no doubt. We will sled well into our ninetys! I LOVE YOU betsy! Happy Happy BIRTHDAY

Happy Birthday, Betsy! My forty-two is a couple months away. If we have snow here in Ohio on March 12th, I'll have to go find a hill.

I loved your description of the "morning circus". Every meal around here ages me a few months. My husband and I have to laugh as we try to train our hyper almost-six-year-old to stay seated during mealtime, while the two of us, without fail, are up constantly getting one thing or another from the kitchen. We NEVER eat hot food.

good to see you back updating... we just took out 2.9 y/o out sledding and snowmachinin'...some call that sleddin too... have a great winter and 08 everyone. james mindy oliver: somerville/peru/pawletVT

About Me

This is where I write about being human and raising little humans and... oh the humanity. Oh yes, and returning to Vermont, after living in France. I'm taking reentry one day at a time with my eyes always fixed on the horizon.